In the past four months, I have: quit a job; traveled with Scott to Italy, Germany, and France; renewed many friendships; visited Mama Chow in Canada; started a new job; and helped Scott move to Berkeley, where he will be working for the coming year. A major catalyst for this frenetic cycle of good fortune is my mentor, Bob Lank. When I lacked the confidence to leave my job for the unknown, Bob advised me to take a leap of faith. He declared, “Helsa, this year is going to be about betting on yourself.” I heeded his counsel and traveled to Venice, where Scott was attending a conference; I took this photo of the Basilica Cattedrale Patriarcale di San Marco as Scott and I walked to Harry’s Bar for dinner one evening. Bob was assigned to be my mentor during my second year of business school. Over the years, Bob has coached me through several professional and personal transitions. He has become my confidante and my friend. He and his wife were guests at our Chinese wedding banquet; Scott and I have been guests at their Sunday dinners. Now that we live 2,200 miles (3,500 km) apart, it’s difficult for us to meet for dinner but Bob always has a few words of wisdom for me each time I contemplate a job offer or move to a new city.

Sandy Thornton-Trump was a Professor of Mechanical Engineering at my alma mater. I don’t remember how we met. I do remember the hours we spent talking in his office as I transcribed his lectures on Automotive Design, typed his correspondence, and tidied his desk. He was visually impaired, so he needed an extra set of eyes to stay organized at work. Even though he was blind, he could see that I felt a bit lost at the time. He was generous with his sympathy. Before and after I graduated from engineering school, we would meet for lunch at the Faculty Club to gossip and puzzle over the small intrigues of our lives. We shared sorrow and joy: he and his wife helped me to cope with my father’s death; I had the pleasure of meeting their little grandson; they vetted and approved of Scott. The final time I saw Sandy was soon after my honeymoon. Scott’s parents had hosted a reception on their farm to celebrate our marriage but Sandy and his wife had declined to attend. I paid Sandy a visit and sadly found him in ill-health. He passed away three months after our visit.

Ron Vermette was my teacher in Grade 3. Mr. V made learning fun for me. More importantly, he proved that it’s possible to do great work and remain true to oneself: his long hair, Chuck Taylors, Winnipeg Jets jersey, convertible, and proficiency at air guitar were incidental to his talent for opening minds to new ideas. He shook up my eight-year-old reverence for orthodoxy and for that I remain grateful. He taught me how to tie-dye fabric, tool copper, and mold plaster of Paris. I still enjoy getting my hands dirty to learn something new. He used to print math exercises on top of cartoon characters, so that his students could colour in the cartoons as they learned to add and subtract. I still have a collection of booklets that I wrote and illustrated in his class – he had taught me how to sew the pages together. A couple of years ago, I wrote Mr. V and asked him if he had continued to play floor hockey, build reading caves, and make art with his students. He responded to my note and I was happy to learn that after 33 years of teaching, he was still having fun. He still plays floor hockey once a week and he still has a reading cave in his classroom. He still has long hair but has “traded in the hot car for a Jeep“. Mr. V plans to retire next year. Before he retires, I will send him another note.

Steve Jobs died today. Many people will remember Steve Jobs for how he revolutionized the way we create, convey, and consume cultural content. As much as I admire his professional accomplishments, I will remember him most for his front yard: I took this snapshot of poppies growing in his front yard when I walked past his house for the first time in June 2009 with my German friend Manuela. At the time, we didn’t know that the property belonged to him and his family. All I knew for certain was that a subversive with excellent taste lived there – someone who dared to forgo a manicured lawn in favour of a wildly whimsical field of poppies. Someone who dared to stay hungry and stay foolish.

Like this:

On the final night of Mama Chow’s Christmas visit, we walked to dinner at L.A. Prime atop The Westin Bonaventure where we admired the Los Angeles skyline, had a nice meal, and then fought over the bill as good Asian families do (Mama Chow won). On our way to the restaurant I took this photo of the Angels Flight railway, which we rode up Bunker Hill from Hill Street to California Plaza.

This photo was a happy accident. I had set the shutter speed at 15 seconds as it was dark outside, but then I forgot to turn off the camera’s flash. The camera captured the train in motion. The illuminated tower that hovers over the train is Los Angeles City Hall. City Hall, which was completed in 1928, wasn’t even around when Angels Flight was built. A plaque mounted onto a boulder next to the train station reads:

Built in 1901 by Colonel J.W. Eddy, lawyer, engineer, and friend of President Abraham Lincoln, Angels Flight is said to be the world’s shortest incorporated railway. The counterbalanced cars, controlled by cables, travel a 33 percent grade for 315 feet [96 meters]. It is estimated that Angels Flight has carried more passengers per mile [1.6 km] than any other railway in the world, over a hundred million in its first fifty years. This incline railway is a public utility operating under a franchise granted by the City of Los Angeles.

Between 1901 and 1969, the railway ran along tracks which connected Hill Street and Olive Street at Third Street. The railway was dismantled in 1969 to make way for redevelopment and was finally re-constructed in 1996 to operate at its current location until 2001, when its gear train failed. The railcar at the top of the hill, Sinai, hurtled down the hill and crashed into the other railcar, Olivet. One man died and seven people were injured in this accident. Angels Flight re-opened in March 2010 and a one-way ticket to ride now costs 25 cents.

In the film “500 Days of Summer” (2009), the main character Tom takes his girlfriend Summer to Angels Knoll Park. The park is his favorite spot in Los Angeles as he can look out over a number of buildings he likes, although the view is spoiled by parking lots. Seven dots of white light shine from these parking lots in my photo. The Angels Flight railway runs through Angels Knoll Park.

A couple of weeks ago, Scott met my flight at LAX after I flew “home” from Canada. “Home” has become an abstraction for us and many of our friends. “Home” is not necessarily a house, it’s not where we keep our stuff, and it’s somewhat exclusive of where we pay tax. In the kitchen of our loft in downtown L.A., I’ve hung two photos of the little house we own in Canada. When we first moved to America, I worried about our tenants painting our old bedroom pink. Now, I’m satisfied when our tenants send us a cheque each month. My Canadian brothers-in-law are saints: their basement in Toronto is filled with our belongings. Back in the day, American colonists cried, “No taxation without representation!” to express their resentment over being taxed by the British parliament. We happen to pay tax both in Canada and in America. Although it’s frustrating to pay tax to the Canada Revenue Agency, at least we can vote in Canadian elections. We pay state and federal tax in the U.S., but we don’t have a say in how this money is spent as we aren’t able to vote in American elections. But I digress…

We go “home” to visit family and old friends in the country that issues our passports. And then we go “home” to our spouses or partners in the country where we work and live. If we’re lucky, our spouse will meet our flight and, broken elevator be damned, carry our heavy suitcase up six flights of stairs to the car. I set up my tripod and camera on the roof of the LAX parkade to take this photo of the Theme Building.

Yesterday, I ran seven miles and renewed my love of running in the rain. The temperature outside was 14 degrees Celsius (57 degrees Fahrenheit): it was warm enough for me to run in shorts and a T-shirt; yet cool enough for me to feel refreshed as I motored along the pavement at turbo turtle speed. The rain washed away the salt which otherwise streaks my face as I run. I’m visiting Mama Chow this week and I am so happy to escape the oppressive heat of Los Angeles for the crisp weather of Vancouver.

I ran along No.3 Road in Richmond towards the Fraser River. At the intersection of No. 3 and Steveston Highway, suburban sprawl suddenly gives way to farmland. In the words of Shel Silverstein, I ran “Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow… To the place where the sidewalk ends.” No. 3 ends at Dyke Road, where a trail hugs the bank of the Fraser River. The river was a grey satin ribbon, shiny yet subdued. The water’s surface kept breaking like there was someone standing beneath me skipping stones. I listened to the splashes and tried not to blink as I scanned the area. I quickly realized that I was alone except for the large FISH that were leaping out of the water – to them, the river was a trampoline. Because I was mid-run, I didn’t have my camera with me – the rain would have made picture-taking difficult anyway. I watched the life aquatic until I started shivering. And then I turned around to run towards a patch of blackberries I’d passed earlier.

DIGRESSION: How would you determine the number of times these fish might jump in an hour? Use the Poisson Distribution!

A mile from Mama Chow’s, there is a large house that is surrounded by overgrown blackberry bushes. Cars were parked all over the lawn yesterday and the front sidewalk was slick with ripe and rotten berries that had fallen to the ground – such a waste. I stood on the sidewalk and ate a bunch of blackberries off the bush. Thorns dug into my elbows: a small price to pay for easy foraging. The berries were sweet; they gave me plenty of energy to finish my run.

UPDATE: The Sockeye Salmon run in the Fraser River is newsworthy! The next day, Mama Chow and I drove to the river to see the salmon run. The river was choppy and the fish weren’t very active, but I managed to take a snapshot of one sockeye as it poked its head out of the water.